Vatican document: Rise in tourism creates opportunities for evangelization, conservation

July 02, 2015

With 1 billion people now engaged in tourism, there are a billion opportunities for the Church's evangelizing mission, writes the Pontifical Council for Migrants in a message for World Tourism Day.

World Tourism Day will be observed September 27. The Vatican document, released on July 2, is entitled, “One billion tourists, one billion opportunities.”

The document explains that tourism creates opportunities for interactions between societies, noting that many tourists wish not only to see other cultures but to participate in them. The expansion of travel also could give rise to a shared interest in preserving the environment of tourist destinations, the Pontifical Council says—although noting that the impact of tourism on societies “can promote their conservation or, paradoxically, their destruction.”

Regarding the evangelization of tourists, the document notes that the Church’s mission includes a responsibility “to educate to living free time.” Church institutions, both in the communities that attract tourists and those that send them, should help to educate people to a productive use of their leisure activities, the document says.

 

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Further information:

• One billion tourists, one billion opportunities (VIS)